TATLIN NEWS №39

In search for a basic plastic motive he came to the Museum of Liverpool life, where in one of the rooms he saw an advertisement poster of the twenties picturing a boat flipped over, which he immediately fell in love with. After several months of pursuit for analogous forms he came across an old boat, which turned out to be 114 years old, on banks of Slovenia. The owner of the boat was busy with completing the restoration of the boat, and before setting it afloat he yielded to the artist’s request to make a mould of it. And with the help of the mould Vogrincic made nearly six dozen copies out of fibreglass in his workshop. And after giving it a thought he painted them green, with paint used at NATO military bases. He came back to Liverpool with this exuberant fleet and moored it in the «dry dock» of St. Luke. A powerful visual and contemplative effect of such a direct installation gesture was caused by the combination of forced immaterial mass with the delicacy of pattern of the old stone walls. Of course filling in the spatial capacity with homogeneous environment or multiplied objects often brought success in art in the recent twenty years. From over thirteen thousand Christo’s oil barrels in Gazgolder in Essen to the recent «ice town» made of 14 000 casts of the insides of different boxes by Rachel Whiteread in Tate Modern one and the same ever- young device of transferring the outer into the inner and forcing the macro-scale into the unit of volume is exercised. Vogrincic’s experience in that regard is interesting due to its transparent symbolism and liturgical elevation. It is still rare when a sharp concept is combined with plastic expressiveness. It is characteristic that the observation platform is solved processually, too. There is one point of observation for the installation – outside: the viewer goes up the long curved ramp to the platform at the level of windows in the altar section, where a horizontal perspective opens to view through window crosses of

stone frames. Liquid lines of keels are directed towards the central entrance and further to the mouth of the river Mercey. Towards the west. Horizontal silhouettes of boats clearly repeat the pattern of pointed windows and arches. The architectural and artistic resonance reaches its peak when visitors realize the initial conceptual likeness of the gothic nave – which in Latin means «ship» – with parishioners – boats that are sheltered in it. The deck filled with boats gives the temple – the ship – hope for salvation. And it keeps sailing. Though it is obvious that the conceptual mass in the damaged temple is charged with tragic associations. This is, first of all, a funeral prayer for everyone who has not returned from the sea. «Save our souls» is heard under the boat vaults. And when it rains inside the temple and tears run down the prominent cases, the sky itself joins the requiem. The volumes filling the church space inevitably send our thoughts to the archetype of caskets or

english version

sarcophagi. The boat itself has served as a last ritual shelter for man. At the same time the flipped bottom compensates for the lost roof, and each soul has a shelter here. Perhaps, the Slavs have a tendency to placing coffins among ruins of Catholic temples – remember the final part of Tarkovsky’s film «Nostalgy».

120 ТАТЛИН_NEWS №3(39)46_2007